Talk:Anti-democratic thought

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Philosophy: Social and political Mid‑importance

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	Social and political philosophy

Neutrality

I've had a read through this article and it seems a pretty neutral, factual summary of anti-democratic thought to me, so I'm going to remove the neutrality tag. If anybody disagrees, feel free to reinstate it and explain to me where to find this supposed lack of neutrality. Dantai Amakiir (talk) 23:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Major omission

The article completely omits Islamic thought on this issue. Many Islamists, Wahabbis, etc. are opposed to democracy, believing that it is a sinful Western innovation. Of course, other Muslims are supportive of democracy, even including some Islamists. But still, while it is not the only position in Islam, anti-democracy is without doubt a significant position in contemporary Islamic political thought, so it should be mentioned. 60.225.114.230 (talk) 05:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lenin

The article currently claims that Lenin opposed democracy, using a primary source (Lenin's own writings in The State and Revolution). There, Lenin claimed that democracy represents "the subordination of the minority to the majority" and "an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against another." But Lenin did not intend this as a criticism of democracy. Lenin is very explicitly in support of the systematic use of violence by one class (the proletariat) against another (the bourgeoisie). His argument is not that democracy subordinates the minority to the majority and is therefore bad. On the contrary, his argument is that democracy subordinates the minority to the majority and is therefore good (or at least necessary).

This is simple enough to verify. The State and Revolution is full of references to "proletarian democracy" and Lenin repeatedly expresses his support for such a form of democracy:

"It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush their resistance. This was particularly necessary for the Commune; and one of the reasons for its defeat was that it did not do this with sufficient determination. The organ of suppression, however, is here the majority of the population, and not a minority, as was always the case under slavery, serfdom, and wage slavery. And since the majority of people itself suppresses its oppressors, a 'special force" for suppression is no longer necessary! In this sense, the state begins to wither away. Instead of the special institutions of a privileged minority (privileged officialdom, the chiefs of the standing army), the majority itself can directly fulfil all these functions, and the more the functions of state power are performed by the people as a whole, the less need there is for the existence of this power." [1]
"In this connection, the following measures of the Commune, emphasized by Marx, are particularly noteworthy: the abolition of all representation allowances, and of all monetary privileges to officials, the reduction of the remuneration of all servants of the state to the level of "workmen's wages". This shows more clearly than anything else the turn from bourgeois to proletarian democracy, from the democracy of the oppressors to that of the oppressed classes, from the state as a "special force" for the suppression of a particular class to the suppression of the oppressors by the general force of the majority of the people--the workers and the peasants." [2]

Lenin also attacked capitalism for not being sufficiently democratic, and argued that socialism will bring true democracy:

"We cannot do without officials under capitalism, under the rule of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat is oppressed, the working people are enslaved by capitalism. Under capitalism, democracy is restricted, cramped, curtailed, mutilated by all the conditions of wage slavery, and the poverty and misery of the people. This and this alone is the reason why the functionaries of our political organizations and trade unions are corrupted - or rather tend to be corrupted—by the conditions of capitalism and betray a tendency to become bureaucrats, i.e., privileged persons divorced from the people and standing above the people." [3]
"To develop democracy to the utmost, to find the forms for this development, to test them by practice, and so forth--all this is one of the component tasks of the struggle for the social revolution." [4]

For these reasons, I do not believe Lenin or Leninism should be included in this article. Lenin does not oppose democracy in general; he opposes only "bourgeois democracy," while supporting "proletarian democracy." So I will be bold and remove the Lenin section. User1961914 (talk) 10:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A user has vandalized the page a few months ago and removed all the sources from much of the material

Could someone please restore the removed sourced from the vandal anon user who did this in April of this year.--R-41 (talk) 00:00, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]